Saturday, March 08, 2008

ABC News: Bird Long Believed Extinct Found Alive: "A pale-bellied bird species last seen in the 1920s and long thought to be extinct has been rediscovered near Papua New Guinea. The Beck's petrel was photographed last summer by an Israeli ornithologist in the Bismarck Archipelago, a group of islands northeast of Papua New Guinea."

None of these conventional measures has deterred arsonists, however, and in desperation, Mr Weston-Webb has now fortified his defences with less orthodox technology left over from his time as a travelling showman.

A 30ft Roman catapult, loaded with chicken droppings from a nearby farm is primed each evening. And a cannon, which Mr Weston-Webb once used to shoot his wife across the River Avon, will fire a railway sleeper if triggered by an intruder."

I just heard on the radio that it was this week in 1956 that Dwight Eisenhower announced he'd run for a second term. I really do hate the current system of picking candidates. I've received at least one phone call a day from Hillary's campaign for the last three weeks or more. Very annoying.

The Writer's Almanac from American Public Media: "It's the birthday of the literary critic Leslie Fiedler, (books by this author) born in Newark, New Jersey (1917). He's best known for his book Love and Death in the American Novel (1960). He believed that the great theme of American literature was the search for identity. He said, 'Americans have no real identity. We're all ... uprooted people who come from elsewhere.'"

Six Original And Creative Coincidences Between Lost and Gilligan's Island: "Lost and Gilligan's Island are more alike than you might think. Sure, they both are shows about people being stranded and forced to live on an Island (don't even get me started on the �it is a peninsula� ending) but it goes much deeper than that. The creators of Lost must have watched and dissected every episode of good ole Gilligan's isle and took the craziest parts from it to use in their new show. Here are just a few examples.

WARNING: If you are not caught up on Lost (as of this writing Season 4, episode 6) or Gilligan's Island (as of this writing, most of the original cast is dead) then do NOT read further."

. . . before most of you were born, I read a book of short stories by Jack Finney. The title was The Third Level, and I still remember a number of the stories vividly. In fact, I bought another copy of the book several years ago and re-read some of them. Steve Steinbock, over at Criminal Brief, pointed me to this website, where you can read "The Third Level" and a bunch of other Finney Stories. If you've never read any of them, you're in for a real treat.

Plenty Magazine - Environmental News and Commentary: "Tourists may go on Lamanai Outpost Lodge’s “Crocodile Encounter” for the thrill of watching guides spot, wrestle, and tag the river-dwelling reptiles in their natural habitat. But what many visitors don’t know is that the guides are also researchers, and profits from the adventure fund an ongoing project.

For the past five years, residents from Lamanai and scientists from the University of Florida have been tracking and monitoring the formerly endangered Morelet’s crocodiles. The mainly freshwater reptiles measure up to 14 feet, and are only found in Belize, Guatemala, and parts of Mexico. Researchers hope that the data they acquire will uncover more information about the creature, which scientists know little about."

In Central Texas. In March. Hard to believe, and I'm pretty sure it's something I haven't seen in my lifetime. Not deep, but a nice covering on the ground and trees. I have a crummy little camera here, but no USB cord to hook it to the computer. I'll post some pictures later. We're leaving for Alvin around noon, and we'll be trying to get our lives back to what we call normal over the next few weeks. The last nine months or so have been a little discombobulating, and we'd sure like a few weeks with no surprises of any kind, especially bad ones.

Researchers in South Texas are beginning to sing the praises of a flying cockroach from Asia that has shown a voracious appetite for pests that plague farmers. They concede, however, that most people would still be revolted at the sight of the helpful predator."

Thursday, March 06, 2008

This afternoon we held the funeral for Pet Stutts, Judy's mother. First, of course, there was the big lunch provided by the members of the church. Fried chicken, meatloaf, ham, macaroni and cheese, casseroles, and desserts galore.

After lunch came the service, which was better than I'd expected. Quite nice, in fact. Pet had requested on song, "Sunrise," and she wanted it sung by John Nance, who sang at Judy's and my wedding. John's quit singing as he got older, so the pianist played the song. (John was at the funeral, sitting on the front row.)

The weather was terrible, in the 40s with high winds and drenching rain. Not so bad for the service in the church, but the graveside was another story. I felt sorry for the pallbearers, who had to carry the casket quite a distance. I felt sorry for the rest of us, too, because we had to make that same trip, though not loaded down. Everyone under the tent was cold, wet, and probably miserable, but preacher didn't dilly-dally. He read a couple of verses and sent us on our way.

It's been odd to stay in Pet's house without her. Eerie, even. And it's tough to think she'll never be here again to fix fried steak and black-eyed peas for us when we visit.

As long as Pet was alive, I could tell myself that I wasn't part of the oldest generation in the family. I can tell myself that now, but I'll know it's a lie. The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down . . . .

Flying Off the Shelves - Books - The Stranger, Seattle's Only Newspaper: "In my eight years working at an independent bookstore, I lost count of how many shoplifters I chased through the streets of Seattle while shouting 'Drop the book!' I chased them down crowded pedestrian plazas in the afternoon, I chased them through alleys at night, I even chased one into a train tunnel. I chased a book thief to the waterfront, where he shouted, 'Here are your fucking books!' and threw a half-dozen paperbacks, including Bomb the Suburbs and A People's History of the United States, into Puget Sound, preferring to watch them slowly sink into the muck rather than hand them back to the bookseller they were stolen from. He had that ferocious, orgasmic gleam in his eye of somebody who was living in the climax of his own movie: I suppose he felt like he was liberating them somehow."

Crocodile attack a snap he won't forget | Herald Sun: "THIS huge crocodile came within 1m of making a meal of a fisherman on a Northern Territory river. The croc came alongside the small boat -- probably looking for a free feed of fish -- and suddenly exploded out of the water.

It almost sank its teeth into Novon Mashiah, 27, who was leaning over the back of the dinghy posing for a photo.

The crocodile, estimated to be more than 4m long, landed on the side of the boat then crashed back into the water.

Wednesday, March 05, 2008

I was reminded of this birthday by Bill Peschel's Reader's Almanac. Why does it matter to me? Because at one time I was enamored by Norris's novels. Certainly McTeague is one of the earliest American noirs, and I enjoyed the pulpy sea story Moran of the Lady Letty tremendously. The Octopus is a fine muckraking tale, and one of Norris's books, The Pit, even inspired a popular card game. Long ago, when such things had to be chiseled on stone, I wrote my MA thesis on Norris's work. Those were the days!

Update from Al (Sunshine) Guthrie: Bill, The Scots may indeed be scary (thank you!), but the article you've linked to about the remains found in the children's home in Jersey is entirely absent of Scots.http://jersey.com/wij/wij_en.htmAhem.Al

Gary Gygax, Game Pioneer, Dies at 69 - New York Times: "Gary Gygax, a pioneer of the imagination who transported a fantasy realm of wizards, goblins and elves onto millions of kitchen tables around the world through the game he helped create, Dungeons & Dragons, died Tuesday at his home in Lake Geneva, Wis. He was 69."

Authorities say the man was trying to move the large reptile inside the Big Cypress Reservation when the animal bit him. The man, said to be 38 years old, then got in his car and drove himself to the Cleveland Clinic Hospital in Weston, the Sheriff's Office said."

Margaret B. Jones is a pseudonym for Margaret Seltzer, who is all white and grew up in the well-to-do Sherman Oaks section of Los Angeles, in the San Fernando Valley, with her biological family. She graduated from the Campbell Hall School, a private Episcopal day school in the North Hollywood neighborhood. She has never lived with a foster family, nor did she run drugs for any gang members. Nor did she graduate from the University of Oregon, as she had claimed."

Judy's mother was born on September 16, 1912. She passed away last night. She lived all her life in a little town whose population was probably never more than 700 people. She loved her church, and she loved working in her yard. Even at age 95 she still lived independently, drove 20 miles to the store, mowed her lawn, raked her leaves, and kept the cleanest house in Texas. You've heard of houses where you could eat off the floor? You could eat off the floor of Pet's garage! She was as nice a person as I've ever known, and we're going to miss her terribly.

Sunday, March 02, 2008

Since this was Joe Lansdale's take on Conan, with artwork by Timothy Truman, I was naturally expecting a new vision of the barbarian, with cuddly kitty cats, pink unicorns, maybe some pocket dragons.

Hahahaha! Just kidding. I was expecting violence, gore, sex, and some humor. I got it all. Heads roll (I didn't bother to count, but then I didn't bother to count the number of synonyms for "pig's dick," either), Conan gets it on with a djinn, there are battles galore (with monsters, humans, living dead, etc.), there's a quest, there's more.

Great artwork, fine storytelling, laughs, blood, sex. If that's not what you're looking for, Dark Horse has some excellent Little Lulu reprints you'd like. (Actually I like Little Lulu a lot, but that's another story.)

The guest book hasn't been signed in weeks. The shelves are lined with unsold Dick Tracy pens, yellow fedoras and coffee mugs. And on a recent February morning, a broken furnace kept museum director Jim Johnson shivering until closing. Only a few visitors stopped by, one of them a repairman who got the heat turned back on.

With attendance plunging, museum officials have decided to close in June the 1,000-square-foot shrine to the comic strip detective and his creator — longtime Woodstock resident Chester Gould. The decision was difficult for Gould's daughter, Jean Gould O'Connell, who said her father's estate could not keep funding it."